Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, and the September issue of the Bureau of Naval Personnel Information Bulletin appeared at that moment of final victory. Among its retrospective articles was this three-page examination of radar — the technology that had transformed naval warfare in the years since Pearl Harbor. Early in the war, inadequate radar and poor procedures had contributed to the failure of warning on December 7, 1941. By 1943, improved sets and trained operators were giving American surface forces a decisive edge in the night battles of the Solomons. By 1944–1945, airborne radar was guiding night fighters, surface search radar was coordinating fleet formations in darkness, and fire-control radar was directing gunfire with precision impossible by eye alone. The article traces how radar went from an experimental curiosity to an indispensable weapon of the fleet in less than four years of war.
Click to enlarge
